OMA santa monica plaza project is turned down

OMA plaza at santa monica project is turned down
all images © of OMA

in july, it was announced that OMA had won the bid to realize a mixed-use complex in downtown santa monica. now, local sources have announced that rem koolhaas‘s plans for the plaza have been overturned by the city, as well as the developer metropolitan pacific capital in a 5-1 vote. the santa monica daily press reports that council members have asked metro pacific and its accompanying team, along with developer related california, to go back to the drawing table, and present revised proposals for consideration in a few months time. some of the concerns raised over OMA’s scheme are related to standing height, as well as the lack of affordable housing integrated into its programming. though OMA’s design of layered rectangular volumes, slightly rotated atop one another is architecturally stunning and would invigorate the corner of fourth street and arizona avenue, councilmember gleam davis has said, ‘it may be the most perfect project on this site, but does that make it the right project?‘. we’ll have to wait and find out.

OMA’s plan integrates green walkways and public spaces through a number of terraces–hotel terrace shown here

office terrace

public terrace

the scheme is a composition of stacked rectangular volumes which are slightly skewed

approach

diagram

model